


Interlocked

by sparrowkeet1



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 11:40:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24849163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowkeet1/pseuds/sparrowkeet1
Summary: After Azula's lightning wrecks his chest in more ways than one, Zuko spends his days under Katara's healing touch. He's more than confident in her ability to knit back together flesh and bone. His heart, though, is another matter. He’s long since given up hope of fixing that.As luck (or the Spirits, or destiny, or Uncle Iroh) would have it, Katara is steady where Zuko falters. She has enough hope for the both of them.--Canon-divergent from Azula's lightning strike. Written for Zutara Week 2020, Prompt Day 2 - Counterpart. Aged-up characters into their twenties.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 556





	1. One Month Out

He is soaked in sweat, drenched, and his whole body aches, but nothing is so bad as the sharp skittering of pain in his chest that splinters like glass with every breath. 

He hears the snap of a water whip dangerously close to his face as the ground starts to blur and wheel underneath him. “Had enough?” Katara’s voice rings out across the training grounds. 

He musters the strength to shake his head. “I’m good,” he rasps as his knees hit the dirt. 

Katara bolts to catch him before the rest of his body crashes to the ground. She pushes her cool hands against his chest, and he chokes out a ragged gasp when he feels flesh start to knit together again. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, all the challenge evaporated from her voice. “I know it hurts.” 

“It’s ok,” he mutters. “I was fine.” 

She is still working her hands over him when she chides, “Zuko, you were not fine, and this hurts more because you pushed too hard.” He shakes his head again, but she insists. “It’s one thing to try to keep up your strength, but it’s another to push your body too far. You’re still healing. Lightning is no small thing.” 

He knows she’s right. It’s only been a month since Azula’s strike—her death blow to him, or it would have been, if Katara hadn’t been there to save him. She’s been saving him ever since, laying her healing touch against his skin every day, and he really does feel better. A week ago, he’d asked her to start sparring with him. She’d balked, saying he wasn’t fully healed, but he was healed enough to be sick of lying around. Besides, he’d argued, she could always fix any damage she did. It took him threatening to do it with someone else for her to agree, and now he wishes he _had_ picked someone else, because she is putting him through his paces and then some. 

“Don’t you think it’s you who’s pushing me too hard?” he asks her weakly, attempting a joke, but she scowls. 

“I don’t know what’s going on inside your body unless I’m touching it. You have to tell me when you can’t keep going, preferably _before_ you collapse.” 

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbles. She rolls her eyes and doesn’t answer him, just traces her fingers over his chest and abdomen, looking for muscle and bone to patch up. The broken-glass feeling has relented, and he can breathe deeply again, but she is still checking him over with the same doggedness she brings to everything. 

He loves this part, when she has put him back together but has to make sure, because it gives him time to soak in the sight of her on the other side of his pain. He is struck, always, by the contrast of her dark hands against his pale skin, the graceful curve of her waterbending motions over the hard planes of his body and the jagged lines of his scars. Her touch is always cold, and she always tells him he’s burning up, and she always smells like the moment before a rainstorm. 

Too soon, always, his favorite moment is over, and she grasps his forearms to pull him to his feet. “Come on,” she says briskly. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

“You don’t have to baby me,” he protests as she shepherds him down the hall and into his own bedchambers. 

“Sit,” she orders, and he does, because he’s already fought with her quite enough for one day. The palace staff has laid out dinner for them, which has been their routine these past several weeks. “I’m not babying you. I’m taking care of you. It’s different.” 

He grunts by way of response, and she rolls her eyes again. They eat in more or less amiable silence, and then she has him sit on the bed so she can unwind and rewrap the bandages around the angry wound that his sister had engraved on him. “How’s that?” she asks, her hand lingering on his spine. 

“It’s good,” he answers. “Thank you.” This is an unexpected blessing, this extra moment of closeness with her. Too soon, she is standing and wishing him good night, and he collapses onto his pillow. This is his least favorite part—her leaving. 

\--

One morning a few more weeks into the cycle of sleep and pain and Katara that is his healing, his uncle comes to visit. “How are you doing, nephew? I brought you some tea!” 

Zuko feels better, or at least good enough to give his uncle a little smirk and poke fun at that most characteristic of Iroh-isms: _I brought tea!_

Iroh pours them both a cup. “You do look well,” he says thoughtfully. 

“Katara works miracles,” he agrees, sipping his steaming tea. 

“Katara,” Iroh muses. “Indeed.” 

Zuko recognizes the pensive look on his uncle’s face. “Oh, no. What are you thinking?” 

“Just that Katara is a gift from the Spirits.” Iroh gives him a sideways glance. “And a particularly lovely young woman.” 

Zuko groans. “Don’t start.” 

“Why not?” his uncle protests. “I have told you before, there is much to learn from Waterbenders, and she is a very good one.” 

“Water is Fire’s opposite.” Zuko is acutely aware of all the ways they are opposite, in fact. Fire and water, sun and moon. She is all that is good and light and lovely in this world, with her unfailing trust and her foolish loyalty, even to him, even when it means nursing him every day for weeks. Her touch brings healing. 

His just brings ashes. 

“Water is Fire’s counterpart,” Iroh corrects him. “Have you learned nothing about balance after traveling so long with the Avatar? About yin and yang? And there again is something you could learn from the Water Tribe—the moon and the tides. Push and pull. Tui and La.” 

“Call it what you want,” Zuko spits. “We’re too different.” 

“So you have thought about it.” Iroh looks far too satisfied; Zuko decides not to dignify him with an answer. “I do not think,” Iroh says carefully, “that you are so different.” 

“You just said we were opposites,” he grinds out. 

“Counterparts,” Iroh corrects again. “And that does not mean that you have nothing in common. You have both endured much loss, yet you both push onward. I see much strength and determination in you both. Once you decide on a course, neither of you can be moved.” 

Zuko looks into his teacup. Decide on a course, indeed. Push or pull, his course has been set on her ever since he’d realized his terrible mistake under Ba Sing Se. Maybe even before that. And her course, equally immovable, is set on the Avatar. He knows this, doesn’t hope to change it. 

His only hope is to make the most of the time he has with her, and when Aang flies her off into the sunset, he will take the throne and try his best to bind up the wounds of his people half as well as she has bound up him.


	2. Two Months Out

Iroh is back the next day, a welcome break from the reading that consumes Zuko’s mornings. He hasn’t been officially crowned yet—he wants to stand in front of his people as their new leader when he can actually, you know, stand—but he is already knee-deep in the minutia of governing, which so far involves a lot of documents on agriculture subsidies and rural access to healers. Zuko puts his sheaf of papers aside as Iroh begins brewing tea. 

“And how are you today, nephew?” 

“Fine.” 

Iroh lets the silence stretch as the tea leaves steep. When it is ready, he hands Zuko a cup and begins, “I have been thinking about our conversation yesterday.” 

“Oh, no.” 

“Fire and Water—” 

“Yes, yes. Different but the same. Whatever.” 

“Did no one teach you it is rude to interrupt your elders?” Iroh scolds. “Water brings healing, and all life depends on it.” 

Zuko still interrupts. “And fire brings destruction. Without control, it will consume everything.” 

Iroh scoffs. “Do you really think that Master Katara could not bring destruction with her element? That water’s weight and currents do not require control? That she could not drown you?” 

Zuko pictures the terrifying power of her bloodbending. He has seen her strength, but... “She never loses control.” He thinks of Yon Rha. “She shows mercy.” 

“I have seen you show mercy with my own eyes.” Iroh is looking at him with such affection, such sadness, that Zuko has to turn away. Iroh repeats himself: “Water brings healing, and all life depends on it. Fire brings warmth, and all life depends on it. Where would we be without the sun, the source of all strength? Prince Zuko, no element is good or evil. There is power in each, just as there is power in each of us, and we must all choose how to use what we have.” 

“That’s a nice story,” he says flatly. It is one he had believed, too, until his sister had wrenched free of the rules of honor and aimed lightning at Katara. The blow hadn’t killed her, or him, but some part of him had died that day. 

He had lost faith in goodness and found it again once already. Wounds his father had burned into his heart and his face had faded, if not out of his mind entirely, at least out of the forefront of his vision. His uncle’s steadfast love had finally staunched the bleeding, and Katara had tied off his last stitch in the catacombs. Even though he had betrayed her then, that was the North Star he’d followed months later, the glitter of belief deep inside of him that he could find a path besides that of vengeance and power and honor and anguish. 

The time he had spent with the Avatar and his friends had been the happiest of his life, save for perhaps his time-worn memories of his mother. Winning Katara’s forgiveness, winning her back to believing in him had been his proudest achievement. 

But then his own sister had revealed that she was rotten to the core, and they are made of the same stuff. The flesh and blood, if you peeled it back off Azula’s ribs, would show a heart black and dead as coal, and they have the same flesh and blood. 

He is too tired now to find faith again. A younger Zuko might have had the strength, might have been angry that Azula’s strike had shattered his precious few weeks of hope along with his bones. But Zuko had let his anger slip away already.

All he has left is despair. 

Iroh’s eyes are filled with tears. Even though it hurts, Zuko stands up, and even though it is his office, he leaves. 

\--

When Katara knocks on his door that evening, her cerulean eyes are red-rimmed from crying, and she looks like she hasn’t slept since the last time he saw her. 

“Katara?” He hasn’t seen her cry since he betrayed her in the catacombs, and it makes his chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with his injury. 

“What?” she asks sharply. 

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Do you want to spar or not?” 

“Fine.” He follows her out to the training grounds, and he can see her skin stretched thin over her knuckles. He can see tension in every line of her body, all her muscles bunched tight. When she turns to face him, sunk low into her stance, her face is schooled into a mask of calm, but he can see her mouth quivering. “I don’t think ‘nothing’ is the matter.” 

She doesn’t answer, just strikes at him with blades of ice, and he narrows his focus to the match. 

She is even more aggressive than usual, and he is dripping sweat in half the normal time. His wound is screaming. He is reduced to defense, dodging her blows, and he never manages to get his feet under him with enough stability to strike back before she stops short. 

“I think that’s enough for today.” Her voice is brittle, and he is too out of breath to argue. She crosses the grounds, gives his wound a cursory touch, and turns to go. “That looks fine. See you later.” 

He can only stare after her. She has never skipped re-wrapping his bandages, never even skipped dinner. And she has _never_ pulled a punch from him, not ever. 

\--

The next day, they spar like normal, and she accompanies him to his chambers for dinner as always. Neither one of them mentions the previous day.

When she replaces the bandage, she remarks, “You’ll be ready for coronation soon. You’re almost all the way healed.” 

With that pronouncement, her hands on his skin feel like ice in his veins, because he knows what ‘almost all the way healed’ means. “So you’ll be leaving soon.” 

“I don’t know.” Her voice is cracked, and he sees some of yesterday’s anguish creep into her face. “Aang wanted to leave a few nights ago.” 

The ice races through his whole body, but he can’t pretend he didn’t know this was coming. He tries to use the ice to his advantage, to pull it over the ache in his heart, to numb the feeling of the floor crumbling. “So leave.”

“You’re not all the way healed _yet,”_ she snaps suddenly. “I can’t leave now.” Just as quickly, her face crumples. “Besides, he’s already gone.” 

“He’s…gone?” Last he checked, the whole gang was sticking around for his coronation, and then they would be off to do Avatar Things, or whatever it is they do when he isn’t around. 

“Yeah.”

Zuko has no idea why this is cause for alarm. “I mean, he has a flying bison. He can take trips. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” 

“He’s not coming back anytime soon,” she says quietly. “He has business in the Earth Kingdom, and Toph and Suki wanted to go back to help start everything up, and Sokka wanted to go with Suki, and…they left.” 

He’s trying to do the math in his head. “They’re gone? All of them? They left you here?” 

She lets out a bitter little laugh. “Aang doesn’t see it that way. He said I was choosing to stay. Choosing not to go with him.” 

None of this is adding up. “What aren’t you telling me?” 

“Nothing. They were ready to go, and you still need me, so I’m still here.” 

Zuko does not buy this. He’s pretty sure Appa couldn’t drag Aang away from Katara; no way did he get bored and leave her here for ‘Earth Kingdom business.’ “Katara,” he says slowly, trying to work it out. “You can go with them. I’ll be fine. I’m not trying to keep you here.”

There’s that rueful laugh again. “Yeah, I know.” 

“What does that mean?” 

She doesn’t answer, just brushes one hand over the scar on his chest. “I don’t think that needs to be re-wrapped. Get some sleep, ok? I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He thinks about her leaving, and he doesn’t get much sleep at all.

\--

A week later, Katara pronounces him well enough to be crowned. The coronation is everything he’s dreamt of his whole life, except now he can think only of Azula, how their plan was to keep her off the throne, and here is the same DNA on it anyway. He spends the whole time trying not to puke up his heart; he is so desperate to be rid of anything that ties him back to his sister that he thinks maybe that would be the best outcome after all.

Katara taps on his door after the ceremony is over, and he beckons her in. “That was lovely,” she says. “I just wanted to see how you were feeling.” 

He unclasps the heavy formal armor and sheds it along with the floor-length robes. “Like I’m going to be sick,” he mutters, sinking onto the bed. 

“What?” She rushes to crouch in front of him, her fingers on his abdomen cool through his thin tunic. 

He waves her hands away. “No, not like that. I just…I don’t know.” 

She still looks concerned. “What’s going on?” 

He looks at his hands, scarred and torn up as the rest of him, and finally tells her, “I don’t want to be Fire Lord.” 

She stares at him. “What in the world are you talking about?” 

He shouldn’t be telling her this—shouldn’t be telling anyone this. But if anyone knows what the inside of his rib cage looks like, it’s her; she’s seen it. “It’s just as bad as if Azula were in charge,” he whispers. “I’m her brother. Our parents are the same; we grew up the same way. How will I be any different from her or my father?” 

“Zuko, what the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?” 

He has never heard her say so much as “damn.” 

She shoots to her feet. “How will it be different? It couldn’t be more different! Azula and Ozai—they chose evil, over and over again; they chose themselves over their people, power over harmony! It doesn’t matter that you grew up the same way. It doesn’t even matter that you’re related. You make your own choices, and I’ve seen you choose good. I’ve seen you put others before yourself.” 

Her voice is rising, but he can’t get his over a rasp. “You’ve seen me hurt others. I’ve hurt you.” 

She throws her arms up. “So? You’ve screwed up. So has everybody. I’ve hurt you plenty!” 

“Oh, please. It’s not the same.” 

“How is it not the same?” 

“Because it’s not who you are! It’s just a screw-up, like you said.” 

“Zuko,” she says seriously, “it’s not who you are, either.” 

He tells her sadly, “I wish I could believe that.” 

Her righteous indignation puffs out of her, replaced with pity, which makes him want to puke even more. But then she says, “You can. And until then, I’ll believe it for both of us.” And it is such a heartbreakingly kind thing to say that he doesn’t know how to formulate an answer. 

“Thank you,” he says finally. The words are woefully inadequate. 

She smiles a tiny smile. “You’re welcome.” 

He looks at the little semicircle of her lips echoing the dip of her collarbone and the curve of her folded hands. He thinks he might break apart with longing.

The silence stretches into awkwardness. Finally, she says, “Well, I won’t keep you. See you tomorrow.” 

Tomorrow, the day he’s dreaded for months. Tomorrow, the day after the coronation. Tomorrow, the day Aang whisks her into the sunset. 

“Right,” he manages to eke out. “Get some rest for your trip.” 

She frowns. “What trip?” 

“You’re leaving tomorrow. That was the plan—that you’d stay through the coronation.” 

She shakes her head. “No, I told you—the plan changed. Everyone’s gone. You didn’t notice they weren’t at the ceremony?” He decides not to tell her the full extent of his preoccupation with throwing up his internal organs. “Anyway,” she’s going on, “I’ll leave, but I’ll have to wait for a ship to take me…somewhere.” 

Not tomorrow. He is dizzy with relief. He is also very confused. “Somewhere,” he repeats. “Isn’t everyone in the Earth Kingdom?” 

“Yes, I think so.” 

He can feel the gears turning in the back of his mind. “But you’re…not going to the Earth Kingdom?” 

“No, I’m not.” 

There has to be something he’s missing. “You’re going…somewhere.” 

“Yes.” 

He swallows, can’t believe what he is contemplating, says it anyway: “You know you don’t have to leave. You can stay here as long as you like.” More time with you would be heaven, he wants to say. When you leave it’ll be an even worse hell, but that’s an exchange I’ll make for as long as you’ll let me. 

“You’ll be busier now that you’re officially the Fire Lord,” she says. “I’ll just be in the way here.” 

“If anything, you’d be helpful,” he tells her. “I’m trying to lead a Fire Nation integrated with the rest of the world for the first time in a hundred years. You’ve been all over.” 

“So have you,” she points out. 

“I was on a ship, looking for the Avatar. You were charming the locals.” 

She snorts. “I don’t know if that’s what I’d call it.” 

“I was there for part of it,” he reminds her. “You were charming.” 

“Well, thank you,” she laughs. “And thank you for your offer. I can’t overstay my welcome here.” 

The words tumble out before he can stop them. “You are always welcome here.” 

She looks at him strangely. “That’s very kind.” 

“That’s not what people usually say about me.” 

She laughs at that, too, and gets up. “Well, they don’t know you like I do. Good night, Zuko.” 

“Good night,” he says automatically, but he doesn’t fall asleep for hours, because he’s not really sure what just happened.


	3. Always

She doesn’t talk about leaving for the next few weeks, but she does spend a lot of time in his office filling him in on the farther-flung parts of the world. She tells him about her stint as the Painted Lady, about the spirit of the burned-down forest, about the prison ships where Earthbenders labor in chains. He hates every second of it, but he has to know, and he promises them both that he will right as many of these wrongs as he can. 

One morning, she is perched on a corner of his desk reading out numbers when Iroh bustles in with tea. 

“Good morning, Lady Katara!” he cries. “What a pleasant surprise.” 

“Good morning, General,” she says politely, and Iroh waves his hands. 

“Please, please. Call me Uncle!” 

Zuko glares at him, which he ignores. 

“So, what occupies the Fire Lord today?” He busies himself making tea while Zuko finishes writing in Katara’s figures. 

“Plans for new factories,” Zuko tells him. “Katara reports that some Fire Nation properties are, ah, less than environmentally friendly.” 

“Ah!” Iroh exclaims, and Zuko and Katara both startle. “You mean she is helping you with your work! Filling in the gaps in your knowledge! Why, that makes the pair of you excellent, what do you call it—”

“Don’t say it,” Zuko growls, and Iroh crows with victory. 

“Ha! I do not need to, my nephew!” 

Katara looks between them. “What in the world are you two talking about?” 

Iroh settles in for a lesson. “You see, my dear, Fire and Water are not opposites—they are counterparts.” 

She looks puzzled. “Yeah, I know. Like the sun and moon.” She glances at Zuko. “So?” 

“So, some of us are not as well-informed about the balance between elements.” 

“Water tribe kids learn that in preschool,” she stage-whispers to Zuko. 

“I did learn it!” Zuko feels an ugly blush creeping up from his collar. “My uncle is just very enthusiastic about push and pull and all that.” 

She shakes her head. “Push and pull is the moon and the tide—” 

“I know that, too,” Zuko interjects. 

“It’s not the same as Fire and Water. We learned that Fire and Water are like interlocked fingers—where one is convex, the other is concave, and vice versa. Together, they are stronger than each is apart, stronger even than the sum of their separate powers. In fact, it is part of Water Tribe lore that rare unions of Waterbenders and Firebenders existed long ago, before the war. According to legend, their might was unparalleled because they controlled all that was needed for life.” 

Iroh looks unbearably self-satisfied. “You left that part out,” Zuko accuses him. 

“I only knew whispers of the legend. Lady Katara has done a much better job painting us a picture than I ever could have.” 

Katara looks embarrassed. “Oh, no, it’s just—just a story we learned as kids—it was well over a hundred years ago if it ever happened.” She gulps. “Well, I, uh, don’t want to disturb your tea.” 

“You are welcome to stay,” Iroh says, but she is already on her feet. 

“Thank you,” she says, banging open the doors. “But I have a…thing…” 

When the doors swing shut behind her, Iroh fixes Zuko with a meaningful look. 

Zuko tries to head him off. “Don’t get excited. She’s with Aang, always has been.” 

Iroh takes a thoughtful sip of his tea. “I haven’t seen the Avatar in months. Have you?” 

\--

Zuko spends the rest of the day turning everything over in his mind. His uncle is right, at least about Aang—he’s been gone for some time, and Katara hasn’t breathed a word about him unless Zuko brings him up. He has, as has been the case for months, the strongest sense that he’s missing some key piece of information, the last piece of the puzzle. 

He would normally have dinner with her later, but something is churning in the back of his brain, and he goes looking for her as soon as he can put aside his work. She’s not on the training grounds or in the infirmary, so he tries the bedroom she’s been occupying all this time. It’s in a wing of the palace typically used for visiting dignitaries, and he almost never ventures there—he doesn’t think he’s ever seen the inside of her chambers. 

When he knocks on the door, she shouts to come in, so he swings the door open. The room is a standard palace bedroom, spacious and draped in red silk and velvet, but this room is shot through with blue. A Water Tribe quilt, hand-stitched, is folded at the foot of her bed; a tapestry of ice and ocean waves hangs on one wall. She has a pile of scrolls on her desk; the ones half-open reveal Waterbending forms with their sinuous illustrations. She is propped in a windowsill reading a book; a stack of them is leaning precariously beside her. Zuko is surprised at how lived-in the space looks, although he supposes she’s been here so long, it makes sense that it looks like a home. 

“Zuko!” She closes the book and puts it back on the stack, which sways dangerously. “What are you doing here?” He watches her flush, the carbon copy of her face in his office earlier that day. 

“I came to see you,” he says, “obviously. Isn’t this your bedroom?” 

She crosses her arms, but the blush stays. _“Obviously_ I meant _why_ did you come to see me.” 

He feels awkward, hovering on the threshold, but he doesn’t want to barge into her space—not when it is so intimately her, with her Water Tribe flourish in the midst of all the crimson décor. “I wanted to talk to you. About…about Aang.” 

Her shoulders slump. “What about him?” 

He tries to choose his words carefully. “I think…something happened. Why did the plan change? Why did the rest of them leave without you?” 

She pulls her knees to her chest and sets her chin on them. “It’s not important.” 

“I think it is,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to tell me, but…I’m asking.” 

She heaves a sigh and pats the wide stone of the windowsill. “You might as well sit down. It’s kind of a long story.” 

He wedges himself onto the flagstones, their feet tucked together, his knees bunched up like hers. She doesn’t meet his eyes, but she tells him the whole thing, the first kiss and then the fateful second. “It was the night before I…I almost hurt you sparring. That’s why I was so upset. He kissed me, and I didn’t want him to. I told him that of course I loved him, but not in that way. He got really upset. He told me he was sick of waiting around here while I spent all my time with you. He said it was time to leave.” 

“But you didn’t leave.” 

“No. You still needed me.” 

Then you can never leave, he thinks. “I’m sorry, Katara. I’m sorry I kept you here, and I’m sorry they left.” 

“Neither one of those things is your fault. I chose to stay, and they chose to leave.” 

“But the others…Suki and Toph and your brother?” 

“I don’t think they know what happened. I get letters from Sokka, and he’s chipper as ever. It sounds like he thinks I’m coming any day now. They don’t even know they missed the coronation.” 

Zuko is sure that can’t be true. “No, we sent word to Aang.” 

“No, I know he knows. I just don’t think he told the rest of them.” 

Zuko can’t imagine that. He can’t imagine any of this. “What…what now?” He has all the pieces of the puzzle, but far from snapping into place, this last one has scrambled all the others. 

“I don’t know.” She scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I won’t follow them to the Earth Kingdom. I just can’t. Aang is my friend, or at least he was, but the way he acted…it was wrong. I won’t be treated that way.” Her voice trembles. “But that means I don’t have anywhere to go.”

He is still scrambling to figure this out. If she’s not tied to Aang, never has been, not in that way…

No. No, no, no. He is too tired to hope, too weak and wounded to go another round with faith and disappointment. 

She starts to cry, and he jerks forward. He doesn’t know what to do, but he has to do something, so he pats her leg awkwardly. She reaches for him, and he lets her interlace their fingers. “It’s ok,” he says, trying for a soothing tone. “You can stay here. You don’t have to find somewhere to go.” 

“That’s very kind of you,” she croaks. 

“It’s not a kindness,” he tells her before he can think better of it. “I want you here.” 

She turns her big eyes on him, tears still clinging to her lashes. “What?” 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, he has never said that out loud, not even to himself. But there’s no hiding it now—her gaze is like a searchlight. She looks…hopeful. 

He wonders if all that hope is like her infinite belief—enough for both of them. 

He squirms, looks away. Fuck, he is too tired for this, but somehow—somehow, before, he was too weary to hope she would ever feel about him the way he feels about her. Now he can’t muster the energy to keep pretending that’s not what he hopes for every second of every day. “I want you here,” he repeats. 

“What,” she repeats in turn, “exactly do you mean by that?” 

He thinks this isn’t fair; she has never known him to be good with expressing himself. “I thought you were with Aang,” is the best explanation he can come up with. “I thought you were going to leave with him. Fly off into the sunset.” 

“Well,” she says simply, “I’m not.” 

“Right,” he says. “I didn’t know that. Until now, I mean.” 

He is pinned under her stare like a dissected animal, and he is; she has seen him taken apart, has put him back together. 

“What difference does it make?” 

He looks at their twined fingers. Convex and concave. Unparalleled strength. 

Certainly enough strength to revive whatever Azula had killed deep inside his chest. 

“All the difference in the world.” 

\--

He doesn’t have any idea who moves first. He just knows that in one blurred second, he has a lapful of the prettiest Waterbender on Earth, and a mouthful of her, too. 

Her lips are hot against his, and he feels the swell of months of longing in the back of his throat. He tries to sear it into the skin of her jaw, her neck, her shoulder. He doesn’t have the words for it, but he needs her to know how long he’s wanted this, wanted her. 

He doesn’t know how they get to her mattress, either, or how they get out of their clothes. He doesn’t know if he’s doing any of this right. 

What he does know is why the rare union of a Firebender and a Waterbender is the stuff of legend. He knows they fit together, body and soul. He knows that in the quiet moments after, he finds the words he wants, and so does she: _I love you._


End file.
